


wanna start something?

by iimpavid



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Fist Fights, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Someday there will be smoochin'. I promise.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24201388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iimpavid/pseuds/iimpavid
Summary: Then Mick nods and the gesture pulls the whole room together. He puts a hand up, ticking off the rules he lists out: “Alright, but no face shots, no broken fingers, and lay off the kidneys.”
Relationships: Juno Steel/Mick Mercury
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	wanna start something?

**Author's Note:**

> There's an atticus poem out there that goes something like, "there's nothing like a punch to the face to remind you you don't want to die" and if that isn't Juno Steel to the letter I don't know what is.

Juno forgot what he and Mick were arguing about. It just feels good to shout and he’s so mad it feels like the top of his head’s going to lift right off, he’s going to break something, he’s going to put his hand through a wall. Again. 

“Clean and sober” was a bad idea because more than anything he could use a drink (or a hit or a line) to level him out and more than  _ that _ he wants to see if getting somebody to beat the pulp out of him will quiet the seething nest of hornets centered somewhere in the middle of his skull. There’s always someone else jonesing for a fight somewhere and Juno’s got a knack for finding them. 

But Juno doesn’t know what they’re even arguing about and that makes everything else impossible to say.

Only there’s no “they” arguing. Juno is pacing his apartment yelling and Mick is trailing after him -- saying something that he can’t hear over the hornets. Making appeasing noises. Cracking jokes. Doing his level best to diffuse a bomb that’s already gone off and is just the first drop.

Juno needs a drink.

Mick, he means well, so he puts a hand on Juno’s elbow to turn him away from the door. It’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to do when your furious best friend wants nothing more than to hurt himself and everyone else, you don’t let him out of your sight. Sometimes your best friend doesn’t appreciate it so he shoves you off.

And shoves again because it feels damn good to get hands on someone and  _ make  _ them move where he wants them to. It feels like years since the last time he was able to get what he wanted out, since he had an effect, and shoving Mick is something like both at once and it’s damn close to a good high.

For once in his goddamn life Mick doesn’t take the bait. He steps off, hands up, palms out, still going on in that appeasing tone. “ Hey, hey, hey-- no. Jay. I’m not tryin’ to start a fight--”

Juno snarls at him. “ _ What if I am _ ?” 

They both pause. 

He’s never looked more like he belongs in Juno’s space than he does right then, backlit by the weak Martian sunset through the crappy alley window with his locs tied back in threadbare jeans and a henley that long ago faded from its original color into a soft, cool grey. He’s even barefoot. He’s a mess. Dirty floors never bothered him but it’s bothering Juno now that it doesn’t bother him, the palpable aura of the unvacuumed carpet, the filthy windows, the takeout boxes scraped clean and piled into bag and tied off by the door. Mick just stands there like he doesn’t have a problem with the musty smell or the fact that Juno hasn’t showered in two weeks. It’s disgusting. There’s something wrong with him.

Mick, oblivious to Juno’s redoubling irritation, is taking his time deciding whatever he’s deciding. Eyebrows raising then drawing together and his mouth settling into a sort of moue as he considers. He’s always had that problem. Mick Mercury reads like a book if you pay any attention at all to his face, and Juno has to wonder how he’s survived so long in this city with such an open face and such a gullible mindset-- 

Then Mick nods and the gesture pulls the whole room together. He puts a hand up, ticking off the rules he lists out: “Alright, but no face shots, no broken fingers, and lay off the kidneys.” 

“That’s a new level of pathetic,” Juno scoffs, “Offering to let a lady kick your ass, for what? ‘Cause she had a bad day? What’s wrong with you?” 

The attempts to ruffle Mick’s feathers settle onto the murky carpet between them and Mick doesn’t bother to stoop and pick them up-- that’s Street Fighting 101, don’t drop your guard unless you want your teeth kicked in. He’s shifted back already. Fists curled into a high-low stance, shoulder cheated just enough to be a slightly-smaller target. Not that he’s ever made for a small target. Mick Mercury hasn’t been small since he was in kindergarten.

It comes out lazy, maybe even bored, when he replies, “I dunno, Juno, you haven’t been keeping up with the whole HCPD training regimen. I like my chances.” He’s got size on Juno if he needs it but he has a good feeling about this. 

Juno’s lip curls-- his spine is bowstring-tight. It’s not fair that Mick can just stand there, relaxed, weight even between his feet, shoulders down, like he has all the time in the world, like he thinks Juno won’t really hurt him. He should know better by now, really, it’s like he never learns,  _ no one can be that stupid _ \-- but he reigns it in, jaw clenched. 

“You said no face, no fingers, no kidneys?” 

“I mean, I don’t wanna end up in traction either, but yeah, that’s about it.”  “Alright. Let’s go.” 

* * *

The trappings are close to the roughhousing they might have done growing up but this is unfamiliar territory. They’re too old for this, for one thing. Mick keeps getting the upper hand, for another. And Juno, inexplicably, is stone cold sober.

The few pictures Juno keeps on the foyer wall drop free of their nails. Mick smiles when Juno hits him, compliments a particularly brutal punch to the gut. The couch-side lamp makes for a tragic casualty. Juno puts his fist through another paper-thin wall. In the resultant pause Mick steps back to watch him, eyes questioning, until Juno shakes it off and lunges. Gets arms around him, uses the angle for leverage to drag him down to the floor.

He realizes his mistake as soon as they’re down on the musty carpet.

Mick’s only ever been good at two things: machines and wrestling. Mick’s got seventy pounds and five inches on Juno so it doesn’t matter at all that they’re almost 20 years out from the yearMick got kicked off the wrestling team for his shit grades. Another thing on the long list of things in Juno’s life that just aren’t fair. He’s so mad he could spit. He does the reasonable thing and elbows Mick in the face because it’s that or a half-nelson and he’s not feeling like losing tonight.

Mick drops him. Juno feels him shake his head. “Okay, you’re done.” 

In lieu of taking the opening to wriggle away, onto his feet again and press the advantage, Juno turns over his shoulder, bewildered. “Wha-- that didn’t even hurt, you pans--” 

Mick shifts from playful to collected in the span of that second. He digs his thumb up under Juno’s shoulder blade and holds him there. He’s maybe a little rougher than he means to be. He’s not a small guy and that’s a lot of weight to lean into a pressure point. “I said, you’re done.” 

It takes time for Juno to drop the fight. To stop swearing and actually get to the, “Ow,  _ ow _ , Mick-- I said  _ ow _ , okay,  _ uncle _ , goddamn it, that hurts -- I can’t feel my fucking hand!” He’s been electrocuted before, felt the same as this but worse, but there’s something comforting about knowing that this is coming at the hands of a friend.

Mick lets up, of course. Hoists himself off Juno with a heavy exhale.

The living room is a wreck but very little is irreparably broken.

“You should ice that shoulder,” Mick says, and pushes himself to his feet. 

He’s back with a gallon ziplock baggie full of ice before Juno can finish rolling out his shoulder -- and griping and muttering and flexing his fingers as the feeling works back into his hand with a cascade of pins and needles.

“You’re bleeding,” Juno says, because he’s too helpful to avoid stating the obvious-- and he kicks himself for it, for starting this, for needing to make Mick bleed at all.

Mick presses the clattering baggie of ice against Juno’s back and shrugs, “That’s what I get for fighting a lady, huh?” 

Not that Juno’s shoulder is what hurts most. He can’t tell yet what hurts most which he knows means everything’s gonna hurt pretty bad later.

Mick hits hard. Like back alley asphalt or Everclear or 3 a.m. texts to an ex-- but fortunately Juno’s insurance hasn’t run out yet so if his ribs are broken (they aren’t; Mick pulled his punches) he can afford to fix them. Regardless, he’s too winded or he’s too tired to think of a response-- he just reaches up a hand and watches, enthralled, as Mick lets him do it. Doesn’t flinch at all. He sits there and let’s Juno wipe the blood from his lower lip. 

The eye contact would be awkward if it went on a second longer but Mick takes mercy on him and smiles. His whole face crinkles. Blood tints his front teeth pink. “Feel better?” 

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to give myself a birthday gift and start something because hardly anyone else in this fandom is brave enough to write good Juno/Mick content. Who knows maybe I'll finish this one.


End file.
